07 February 2010

What's Next? The Prussians are coming: Prussian OOB

With the completion of the French VI Corps, it is time to move on to something completely different. I was planning to start 1809 Austrians, but with Victrix coming out with Austrians sometime in the future, I felt I should wait before committing myself to the force composition. I am also still trying to figure out how to paint white and have ordered some Front Rank Austrians to get in some practice.

I am presently working on some Perry Hanoverians for my Walmoden's Korps project, hopefully completing Division Lyon (British-Hanoverian) in the next month or so. This project though has always been a piece of historical research, rather than something with which I plan to game.

The lure of Calpe figures has always been irresistible to me and I had been awaiting Martin Kelly's article in Wargames Illustrated on Prussian Army organization for some months and it finally came last week. With this excellent information and the Army Builder in Lasalle, I just could not resist any further.

Using this excellent site which gives the brigade organisation for the Prussian Army in the summer of 1813, I was able to pick the following unit.

The army builder in Lasalle is great and I believe is quite accurate historically, but I can not be excited about painting a generic unit. What I plan to do henceforth is to take an historical unit and paint it as I have been doing in the past, but at the same time construct a Lasalle core unit. It just happens that the Prussian list exists as a free download on the Honour website, and as you can see this historical unit is very close to the core Prussian unit when it is the attacker. There are two too many infantry battalions, the cavalry should be landwehr and I had to add some skirmisher bases. The excess infantry of course will contribute to some future Organic Prussian brigade and who could resist the famous "Death's Head Hussars" or a few Schuetzen. The one problem is that Calpe does not appear to have grenadier figures (I do not believe they are significantly different, but I need to do a little more research), so I substituted a Fusilier battalion.

10 comments:

Hi, I'm doing a brigade of Calpe Prussians next, after I finish the brigade of French I'm working on. I have all of the necessary Calpe figures already. The rule set I'm basing my figures for is Black Powder. I'll be following your endeavours with interest. It's too bad that Peter Fitzgerald didn't sculpt any Prussian cuirassiers. He didn't do guard infantry either. Sad.

Thanks. I just remembered that Peter Fitzgerald did quite a detailed article on painting his Prussians in Issue 2 of Wargames: Soldiers and Strategy. On the topic of his - for me - much lamented cuirassiers, he told me in writing on several occasions mid-decade past that they were on his to-do list, but then he went on to the French, which he then left off for the Saxons.

I watched the Superbowl last night and managed to paint during those hours only the epaulettes, collars and shako decorations for 20 voltiguers and 4 grenediers (in overcoats!). In other words, the game was excellent.

Nice choice of brigade John. But then I would say that as I'm building the same one! 8O)

Have you decided that Lasalle is the game for you? I always manage to have a gripe about something in army lists. I'd build the brigade as it was with the full three battalions in the regular infantry regiment (2 musketeer & the fusilier) as well as the grenadiers.

Yes, just like all thinking people, I really am doing the 3rd Brigade! 8O)

You can see some of it plus some of the corps assets at http://web.mac.com/nataliendpeter/Site/Napoleonic_Prussians.html . I need to add some more pictures to the page and I've just noticed that the caption for the volunteer jager is rubbish. It should say something like "Volunteer jager, 4th/3rd East Prussian Infantry Regiment" as the 4th East Prussian Infantry is a different unit. D'oh! Andeasy fix as long as you're not part way through an update that you don't want to publish just yet ... because ypou're only part way through it!! The heading picture shows a little bit of a musketeer battalion and a smidgeon of the fusiliers in firing line. I really should add some more pictures!

I have Lasalle but on the read through it somehow felt more like a 15mm game and a little too optimised for competition / tournament play. Nothing wrong with that in itself, it's just not what I'm looking for. I may very well give them a whirl but they are down the list. My next post on von Peters may have a thing or two to say about rules from my perspective.

I too am interested in Blucher. A couple of us started a 15mm (really 18mm as we're using AB Figures) project where 1 stand equalls a battalion or cavalry regt or battery. What we hoped to play were corps sized actions with them. Blucher may very well be the ruleset for this project.

Good luck with your blog update. I am pretty new to wargaming so the nuance of the rulesets are sometimes lost on me, I am interested in the campaign aspect of Blucher for sure.Your photos are great, very nicely painted force. They point out a planning error on my behalf though, I was reading through Summerfield last night and realise the RIR probably wore a British supplied uniform, I notice that your RIR appeared to be so uniformed. I am going to have to think about this. I look forward to more photos from you.